What is it like to hear voices? How do people learn to live with their voices, and are voices sometimes positive and helpful? What is the connection between voices and trauma? Jacqui Dillon, voice hearer and director of the UK Hearing Voices Network, discusses how the movement of people who hear voices is creating self-help alternatives to traditional and often abusive mental health care.

Compressed Air Storage: The Solution to Unreliable Wind and Solar Energy. Host Stephanie Potter speaks with Michael Tobin and Dr. James Mason who discuss solving the problem of wind and solar electricity prodution. Earlier this year, James Mason co-authored an article for Scientific American: A Solar Grand Plan describing how such a plan could free the U.S. from foreign oil and slash greenhouse emissons by 2050.

Portland's Bull Run Watershed is a natural, low cost and very effective water treatment system. Why are there there plans for a costly chemical filtration plant? How did the corporation Montgomery, Watson, Harza Global influence the decision process? What happens to Bull Run protections? What about pressure to "blend" our water with the river water? Or the $770 million price tag? The City Council vote is set for July 29.

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Host Gene Bradley speaks with award-winning author Nathaniel Philbrick about his latest book, "The Last Stand." Philbrick explores the volatile political, economic, and social forces that led to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the infamous confrontation, and demolishes some commonly held myths

Nathaniel Philbrick's previous books include In the Heart of the Sea, Sea of Glory, and Mayflower.The Last Stand was published in hardback in 2010 and is just out in paperback. He is presently at work on a book about Boston during the early years of the Revolution.

Mayflower was a finalist for both the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History and the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction. In the Heart of the Sea won the National Book Award for nonfiction; Revenge of the Whale won a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; Sea of Glory won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize and the Albion-Monroe Award from the National Maritime Historical Society.

The Oregon Food Bank works with a cooperative, statewide network of partner agencies to distribute emergency food to hungry families. KBOO reporter Ross Freeman Levin visited OFB and talked to volunteers from local agencies and programs who were picking up food to distribute. Hear the voices of people involved in this important process.

Host Marianne Barisonek interviews Tali Sharot about her book "The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain," an exploration of the neural basis of optimism, and how the brain simulates the future. How does the brain generate hope? How does it trick us into moving forward? What happens when it fails? How do the brains of optimists differ from those of pessimists?

Tali Sharot’s research on optimism, memory, and emotion has been the subject of features inNewsweek, The Boston Globe, Time, The Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, and The Washington Post, as well as on the BBC. She has a Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience from New York University and is currently a research fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London. She lives in London.

Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with conservation biologist Thor Hanson about his book "Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle." Hanson says, "Their sheer diversity of form and function make feathers unique from waterproofing to flight, insulation and colorful display." He'll talk about the debate about how feathers evolved and how scientists are studying feathers to gain insights into their many valuable qualities and functions.

Thor Hanson has studied Central American trees and songbirds, nest predation in Tanzania, and the grisly feeding habits of African vultures. He is a Switzer Environmental Fellow and a member of the Human Ecosystems Study Group. Hanson’s first book, The Impenetrable Forest: My Gorilla Years in Uganda, won the 2008 USA Book News Award for nature writing. He lives on an island in Washington State. www.thorhanson.net

Today Per Fagering and Kurt Liebezeit have a chance to sit down and interview Nicole Foss, editor of the popular financial news aggregation site The Automatic Earth, on the topics of energy and finance. Nicole counts nuclear safety among her many areas of expertise, and although the Fukushima disaster has dropped out of the mainstream news cycle it is still very much an area of concern for her and other experts. Nicole also earned her living in Ontario managing renewable energy policy, and she will explain why the green future that many people aspire to is very difficult to put into practice.

Host Stephanie Potter speaks with Jayne Miller, founder of the Oregon Cougar Action Team, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Oregon’s cougar and the ecosystem the cougar sustains. OreCat is an educational foundation working to help people make better decisions about cougars, promote open spaces for them, and create better wilderness management plans. OreCat offers educational presentations and tools for free to Oregonians, schools, communities and churches to help citizens, livestock and agriculture enterprises live fear free with cougars as our Native Nations have done for thousands of years.

Host Stephanie Potter speaks with Jayne Miller, founder of the Oregon Cougar Action Team, an organization for Oregonians dedicated to the preservation of Oregon’s cougar and the ecosystem the cougar sustains. OreCat is an educational foundation working to help people make better decisions about cougars, promote open spaces for them, and create better wilderness management plans. OreCat offers educational presentations and tools for free to Oregonians, schools, communities and Churches to help citizens, livestock and agriculture enterprises live fear free with cougars as our Native Nations have done for thousands of years.

Host Crystal Leighty speaks with Marc Freedman about his book THE BIG SHIFT: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife.

Marc Freedmanis founder and CEO of Civic Ventures. An award-winning social entrepreneur, frequent commentator in the national media, and the author of Encore,Prime Time, and The Kindness of Strangers, Freedman spearheaded the creation of Experience Corps and The Purpose Prize.